What if your biggest setback becomes your greatest setup for building a $100 million empire?
When Dr. Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell lost their New York City corporate jobs during the 2008 recession, they had nothing left but a struggling farm and 80 goats from a neighbor named Farmer John. Fast forward sixteen years, and they've built Beekman 1802 into a global beauty empire worth over $100 million—all by harnessing the power of their tiny 547-person community.
Building a business around community isn't just feel-good marketing—it's a proven strategy for sustainable growth. Ridge and Kilmer-Purcell discovered this when they needed help fulfilling their first major order of 52,000 bars of soap for Anthropologie. Instead of scrambling to hire employees they couldn't afford, they turned to their neighbors. The local postmaster called around, and soon their entire community was helping wrap soap bars around their dining room table.
This moment taught them that authentic community building starts with making others the hero of your story. Rather than positioning themselves as the brilliant founders, they made their neighbors—Farmer John, Soapmaker Deb, Mayor Doug—into celebrities on social media. When visitors came to their store from far away, they'd immediately post on Facebook, celebrating the customer and asking what brought them to their tiny town. This approach transformed customers into evangelists who felt personally invested in the company's success.
The tactical foundation of their community strategy rested on three pillars. First, they recognized media as marketing, appearing on any camera they could find and treating every interview as free advertising. Second, they never made anything about themselves—every initiative was positioned as helping their community or spreading kindness. Third, they measured everything, including developing a scientific "Kindness Quotient" to evaluate potential brand ambassadors based on how much kindness they spread, not just sales they generated.
Their community-first approach created remarkable loyalty. When they scaled from a dining room operation to a company in Target and on QVC, customers didn't feel like the brand was selling out—they felt like they were growing together. This happened because Ridge and Kilmer-Purcell called their customers "neighbors" from day one, creating a neighbor services department instead of customer service, and training everyone from QVC representatives to their own team to answer phones with "Hi, neighbor."
The financial results speak for themselves. By their sixth year, they'd reached $50 million in annual revenue, eventually growing beyond $100 million at retail. But perhaps more importantly, they proved that kindness isn't just good karma—it's good business. Their research with kindness.org showed that team members who performed more acts of kindness had higher sales revenue, giving them data to justify their community investments even to private equity partners.
The lesson for founders is clear: authentic community building requires genuine care for others, consistent storytelling that makes your community the hero, and systematic measurement of relationship quality alongside financial metrics. In a world obsessed with viral growth hacks, sometimes the most powerful strategy is simply being genuinely kind to the people around you.
Watch the Full Episode on Small Circle, Big Business with experts Dr. Brent Ridge & Josh Kilmer-Purcell below:
Follow us to watch live on YouTube and LinkedIn or listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.